This totally going to sound like bragging, but it's a genuine concern: I ran out of condoms.

Thing is, I figure I'm of the age now, and make a decent enough income to where I shouldn't have settle for used CDs, bottom-shelf liquor, or non-quilted toilet paper. Why should I settle with my condoms? I once went comparison shopping, like in freshman year of college or something, but I can barely remember what I had for breakfast, so I certainly can't recall what the results of that experiment were, and in college they practically throw condoms at you in the dorms. After college for a while, I had a girlfriend who was a Resident Advisor in the dorms, so of course she had loads. Then up until now, I was just using the leftover prophylactics from a lunchbag chock full of them I received from her. That lunchbag has finally run out.

I guess I could go comparision shopping again, but I'd really rather just buy a lot at once. I mean, they don't go bad for like, three years or so, right? And that way I can avoid the embarassing condom purchase process. You'd think I wouldn't be embarassed or anything, because the condom purchasing process implies, if anything, that I am having sex. It still weirds me out, however. This is my typical thought process when purchasing condoms:

"Okay, it's cool, there's nothing weird or abnormal about purchasing condoms in the supermarket. That's why they have them there, for people to buy. It's not like they're standing around behind the upstairs office with the mirror windows and having a chuckle at anyone walking into the prophylatic aisle. It's fine, it shows that I'm a safe, responsible person... or a slut. Hmm... maybe I should buy these tampons as well. Yeah, then it not only shows that I obviously have a monogamous relationship going on, but that it is clearly with a woman.

...oh, but what if the checkout guy thinks my girlfriend is mestruating now and I plan on using these tonight? Will he think that's weird? Oh crap. I hope he's getting laid, too. What if seeing someone who's obviously in a serious relationship and apparently having more sex than he is makes him bitter and he charges me twice for them? I better get some other groceries, too, so he doesn't think I'm lording it over him or anything. Let's see... I need some mayonaisse, some carrots, some jam, some latex gloves and a plunger to fix the toilet, and that storm's hitting pretty hard, so maybe some candles... "

So then I get to the checkout line with a chopping cart filled with the apparent equipment for a bizarre sex orgy. Realize this hjalfway through the line and hastily cover it all with issues of Weekly World News and miniature prayerbooks to hide it from the 8 year-olds in line behind me, and am bound to generally make a fool of myself.

So I tried looking at just the names for judgement of their character, and damned if these aren't some of the most non-confidence inducing brand names I've ever heard.

I've been using Kimono, which kind of implies fragility to me, but maybe it's a cultural thing. Besides, they were free.

Ramses is a terrible name for a condom. After all, didn't the real Ramses had more than a hundred children?

And I don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but the term "Trojan" implies big gifts that actually contain tiny little white guys that sneak in and kill you in your sleep.

The Durex gold coin ones are pretty cool, but every time a woman hands me one of those, for a moment I feel like she's trying to pay me, and I go to look for change.

I could go in for some flavored condoms, but for some reason, I'm unable to shake the feeling that will have the consistency and durability of Fuit-Roll-Ups.

Rough Rider? Oh, puh-leeze...

I found this handy condom wizard, but didn't find it very helpful, epinions.com doesn't seem to have any entries for actual condoms, and it's not exactly the subject one brings up amongst co-workers.

Why isn't there a male birth control pill again?

So if I'm sitting in a bathroom stall, doing my business, is it wrong or rude of me to, when asked, "Hey Ken, what's up?" by someone in the next stall, to honestly reply, "Taking a shit."?

Of all the times and all the places, I feel that bathroom time is total personal time. I do not care at all for interaction with other human beings while I am excreting waste matter.

On a related note, the spac ein which I work is sublet by my company from another company which owns the building and takes up most of it. This company is staffed entirely by suits, whereas our company is full of high school graduates, ex-construciton workers and other general schmoes. Why is it that we flush the toilets and urinals more often than the suits? Do they have people at home they've hired to flush for them?

Bummer. The PS2 version of BMX XXX will not have nudity in it after all. Now I won't buy it, simple as that. In fact, I'm pretty upset with Sony (who, incidentally, have the lowest standards for technical requirements than Nintendo or Microsoft (Meaning that you generally will find more bugs in a game for the PS2 than for any other console.)) for treating their adult customer base like children. So yes, I can still steal cars, murder innocent people and wantonly decapitate police officers in GTA: Vice City, but I cannot have bare breasts in a BMX sports game.

It's not like I was that excited about the bare breasts in the first place, considering that I get to see actual bare breasts on a semi-regular basis, but the precedent that it would have set would have meant a lot for more mature content in games in general. Also, somebody really dragged their heels on this, and I know there are folks who have pre-ordered the game, believing they would get titty content, and they they are ass-out on the titty front.

Prudish mother fuckers.

Speaking of being treated like a child, internet access at my job is now restricted to nothing at all. In other words, anything that uses bandwidth is strictly verboten, so I'm breaking the rules for you, the reader, in order to write this right now. I am risking my job, as the possibly 4 or 5k of text that this message consists of is bogging down our file transfer rate so much that it would be grounds for termination. That just shows how dedicated I am to you guys... or how not dedicated to my job. One of the two.

I'll take you to a polling place that's got glass walls, you can watch yourself while you are voting.

Went and exercised my democratic priviledge to pretend that I make a difference in the workings of government at a dance studio last night which did indeed have mirrored walls.

Really, since picking who you want to be in office these days is becoming more and more reminiscent of those childhoos games where one is forced to choose between going blind or going deaf, the only reason I vote is so that I can lord it over people who don't vote. I love getting that little "I Voted!" sticker and applying it firmly to my forehead or the front of my jacket and running up to friends, coworkers, and complete strangers spouting, "Wow! That sure was some election huh? I'm sure glad I voiced my opinion! See where I put my sticker? Where'd you put your sticker? What?! You don't have a sticker?! Why not? Didn't you vote? Why on Earth wouldn't you want to vote? In some countries they would love to be able to vote, but they can't, and you just don't bother?! Guh! I'm so glad I'm a responsible citizen and not a commie scumbag like you!"

In reality, I am the world's most uninformed voter. Okay, maybe not the most uninformed voter, but to tell the truth, I could really give a rat's ass about 95% of the stuff I could vote for. The propositions are always worded in a confusing manner so that you think you're voting for one thing when you're voting for another. I've got a million things I'd rather do besides look up all the facts and statistics regarding every one, and I doubt I'd be able to figure them out anyhow. If it doesn't have the words "marijuana", "homosexual", or "death camp" in the title, I usually just don't bother voting on it. Nor do I care about any of the other 4 billion positions besides governer. Does it really matter to me who's on the school board? No, no it does not. Maybe when I have kids, but not now. Generally, my methods for determining who to vote for in these cases is simple:

Vote for them if:

• They don't leave any junk mail in my mailbox or on my doorknob.
• I don't get any answering machine messages from them.
• They're the only candidate running for the position.
• They're a teacher.

Fuckin' George Bush left a message on my machine asking me to vote for the republican candidates who are supporting his "agenda". Yeah, he actually used that word. Then he called me again while I was home and I screamed "Stop calling me, George! We're through!" into the phone. I hope someone heard that. I should probably do this.

I was hoping to vote for Ed Voss for city council, because he actually came by my house in the barrio and talked to my roomate, instead of leaving piles of crap all over our doorstep. However, if his campaign workers do not take down the sign we let them place on our lawn by the end of the week, rest assured that he will not be receiving my vote next year.

I do a lot of my voting decisions based on how people campaign rather than what they say or how they look or what their positions on the issues are. This means I usually end up voting Green. Some people claim I waste my vote by doing so, but hey, at least I voted!

Heh.. uh yeah... so I remember that a while ago Blogger got like, hacked? or something? And so I heard that one should change one's FTP password? So.. .like, I told Steve, and so he like, changed it? And then I neglected to change it for my Blogger account as well.. so... that's why you haven't seen any posts for the past, like, week.

I didn't realize it wasn't posting to my web page cause like, I don't read that crap. I don't see why anybody would, but apparently some do and e-mailed me asking where I've been, but I looked at the page from within Blogger, which of course had it updated, though it wasn't on my actual page, and so I was like, "Wow, I was only gone for 2 days and they're e-mailing me, I must be really popular or something!", but in reality I was apparently gone for a week, so I uh... wrote a whole bunch of stuff all at once and post-dated it, yeah. uhhmm... that's it, that's the ticket. Ingore that first part, that was ummm... another story about this errr... fake guy... that I know... and stuff.

Whatup, hombres and hombrettes? I know it's been a while since I rapped atcha, and I received a few e-mails asking what was up. Well, therein lies a story:

See, the other day I was coming home from work, which is a feat in and of itself, considering that I am the best driver in all of the Bay Area, and am forced to share the road with approximately 360 trillion other cars who are piloted by lobotomized lemurs. Don't try to argue with me, I've done the math.

Other drivers tailgate people when it's entirely impossible for the car in front of them to go any faster, considering that there is a car in front of them, too. Other drivers attempt to accelerate into spaces between cars when changing lanes, thus completely surprising the driver they overtake by almost magically appearing out of their blind spot. I guess they assume that using their turn signal automatically sends a psychic message to all nearby people, and the fact that the other drivers can't see them is irrelevant. Other drivers creep up on red lights, thinking they are so smart to pre-empt the light turning green, throw lit cigarettes out of their windows, or put way more energy into getting one car length ahead than it is worth.

I do not do these things, therefore I am the best driver in the Bay Area, or possibly the world.

Anyhow, as I was saying before my bitchnmoan gland acted up again was that I was coming home from work and stopped to get gas. I stopped into Arco and proceeded to fill my tank and thought that while I was doing so, I could wipe off the road grime that had accumulated on my windshield, since I am a good driver and like to see what's going on around me.

Like a complete and utter fool, I assumed that by placing the nozzle firmly in my tank and setting the little catch that makes it pump automatically, I could facilitate this pumping and wiping multitask I had set up for myself, rather than causing the nozzle to pump for a while and then fly out of the tank and spray gasoline all over my pants, which is what happened instead.

"Ha ha!", I said to the man next to me who witnessed this I'm sure very amusing spectacle, "Got a cigarette?" Hell, they were dirty anyway, big deal, right? Well, no, not if one is driving home on the freeway with gasoline-soaked pants and has the window rolled down because the car reeks of gasoline fumes, and another car, driving alongside the first car, has a passenger who flicks their lit cigarette butts out of their car windows in a carefree and cavalier manner into other people's car windows and sets their pants ablaze.

I regret not being able to witness a station wagon with a fiery pilot careen off an embankment and into a tree. I'm sure that must have looked pretty awesome.

So now, due to some beuratic bullshit about my not having accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, I continue to burn in hell, where there is only one computer with a dial-up AOL connection. Thus I have not been able to write anything.

..........



Okay, well actually I got my copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Plus I can't blog at work any more. Rest assurred that content is forthcoming and will be ummm... Pulitzer Prize material and stuff and junk.